State Museum, Lucknow

The Uttar Pradesh State Museum has been located on the territory of the Lucknow Zoo since 1963. The museum was originally established with a collection that focused on the Avadh arts and displays pertaining to Indian customs, habits and mythology. Gradually, the museum’s collection expanded to include antiquities from Kapilavastu, the place where Gautama Buddha grew up. Today, this has developed into a multipurpose museum with sculptures, paintings, natural history and anthropological specimens, coins, textiles and decorative arts, dating as far back as the 6th century B.C. From the large number of displayed objects, several hundreds are rare and of great value. Among those are a wine jar from the 17th century with a name inscription of Aurangzeb Alamgir, a jade chamakali with the name Jahangir and the year 1036 AD, a 16th century painting of a scene from the Kalpasutra, a 16th century copy of the Harivamsha in Persian with nine illustrations, rare silver and gold coins, a prehistoric anthropomorphic figure and a fossilized plant. Visitors of the museum are especially thrilled to see an Egyptian mummy and a wooden sarcophagus from the year 1000 BC displayed there.